Latest / The Vietnamese with Kenneth Nguyen / 553 - Will AI Slop Actually Make Real Human Art More Valuable? - Brian Hoang

Transcript

553 - Will AI Slop Actually Make Real Human Art More Valuable? - Brian Hoang · The Vietnamese with Kenneth Nguyen

0:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to the Vietnamese podcast today.
0:02
[SPEAKER_01]: I have Brian Wong and artists on back on.
0:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Brian has been recurring with the address of the Vietnamese podcast for many, many years and I am so happy to have you first time in person.
0:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, absolutely.
0:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And Brian, you are visiting from Canada to be with us
0:29
[SPEAKER_01]: First of all, thank you for donating, it's donating the right word, and donating your pieces to a food firm festival we raised thousands of dollars.
0:39
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm always happy to help, always, don't keep it.
0:41
[SPEAKER_00]: It's honestly like my pleasure, though.
0:45
[SPEAKER_01]: It's such a beautiful sensation to see people buying art that comes out of you.
0:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Good, good, yeah.
0:53
[SPEAKER_00]: It really is, you know, because like I do sell my art regularly,
0:58
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm always like grateful for all the compliments, but last night was just, would you have a different role for that much money?
1:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Help them, no.
1:08
[SPEAKER_00]: So that was extremely flattering.
1:12
[SPEAKER_00]: But it was good, right?
1:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, for sure.
1:14
[SPEAKER_00]: For sure, it was a huge, huge, ego boost.
1:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, like, you know.
1:18
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm getting big headed.
1:19
[SPEAKER_00]: The more I come down here with you guys, always speak.
1:23
[SPEAKER_01]: We love it, you know?
1:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Because there's a contribution there.
1:28
[SPEAKER_01]: It raises the price, hopefully, of what you do.
1:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Honestly, I mean, like, obviously that would be nice.
1:36
[SPEAKER_00]: It has a move in the middle.
1:38
[SPEAKER_00]: It moves the needle for sure, but my main thing is this is gonna sound so, you know, corny, but it is really just being part of this community and being able to contribute to it.
1:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Because honestly, it's so twice in my life ever, I've really found community.
1:57
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, growing up in the seas I grew up in, when a pig, Hamilton Ontario, shout out.
2:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Shout out, not a lot of Vietnamese people.
2:07
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like maybe one of two or three other kids in the entire school.
2:12
[SPEAKER_00]: So I had my friends, they're all Westerners, and great group of guys and everything, but they have a different home life, different upbringing.
2:21
[SPEAKER_00]: So I could relate on a surface level, like the same music, like the same movies, but I couldn't relate on anything else.
2:28
[SPEAKER_00]: So first time I found a community was going to art school, finding people who like like to draw a pain, new who all these comic book artists that I grew up with were like, Jim Lee and stuff like that.
2:41
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the second time I found a community was, well, you guys, like the Vietnamese community, which I was always a part of, I just never knew it.
2:50
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was actually Tracy's podcast, I first listened to and someone talking about Paris Blaine night,
2:57
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, I've never heard, I've never met someone or heard anyone talk about Paris by and I was out of my own family.
3:03
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's like holy shit, like this is, yeah, this is a, and like I knew that, but you don't know because I don't, I was never exposed to getting it.
3:13
[SPEAKER_00]: So to actually like hear someone talk about how they were embarrassed and bringing their white friends or their black friends over, because their parents had parents by night blasting, I'm like, that was fucking me in high school, man, you know?
3:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I had to like, anytime I had my friends over, I have to show my friends weren't watching something.
3:30
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's crazy.
3:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so, in Chicago, those weird things we are.
3:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we are.
3:36
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's maybe not so much now, but I think back then,
3:43
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you wanted to fit in, you wanted to be white, you wanted to be white.
3:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to be human when I was a kid, I wanted to be blonde, like, uh, skillor, yeah, I mean, well, there's no excuse.
3:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I could have done that.
3:54
[SPEAKER_00]: I just chose not to, but yeah, if it like, uh, this is a choice.
3:59
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a choice.
4:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, basically.
4:00
[SPEAKER_00]: This is like the easy sit on a couch choice, much more fun.
4:09
[SPEAKER_01]: We did raise a good amount of money from your art last night.
4:13
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we shared, you know, I shared earlier that this 2026, I kind of got in the painting, although I don't do it as much as I would like to, but it really opened up doors for me to see how painters paint and how artists.
4:31
[SPEAKER_01]: you have to live the life of an artist, which means, and you know, talked about when I had told me that for many years, like, you have to live your art, and it sounds really simple, but it's not, but it really is simple.
4:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no, absolutely, in some respects it is.
4:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no, respects it isn't.
4:49
[SPEAKER_00]: So I know, uh,
4:52
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember an interview or sign filter, whoever's some comedian who's talking about like everything, he observes all the time, he's thinking of a joke.
5:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
5:01
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, so for me, everything I look at is possible reference for a future piece.
5:06
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm always looking for like the tree out there.
5:10
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just a tree.
5:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
5:12
[SPEAKER_00]: But when I walk by, I'm like, like,
5:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Could possibly use it so like snapping pictures.
5:17
[SPEAKER_01]: That's that's what he's talking about.
5:19
[SPEAKER_00]: That was talking about.
5:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah Yeah, you're always always always.
5:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, living in because we are Living breathing instruments and expression.
5:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no 100% and you can't I mean like I can't not look at something as a Potential reference for a piece, you know, so and there's nothing wrong with that It's not like I'm making it sound like it's some kind of cage.
5:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I love it
5:44
[SPEAKER_00]: I love seeing the extraordinary and the ordinary as cheesy as that sounds, you know.
5:51
[SPEAKER_01]: So the first time we had you on as a guest, we talked about your art, and we talked about your journey, and how you got into it, the next time we talked about, we probably stayed in that vicinity, and I think the last time we talked, which probably the third time, we've talked a lot, but I think the last time we talked,
6:12
[SPEAKER_01]: was about AI.
6:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
6:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And we're talking about the fear of AI taking over the art space and the commercial viability of artists.
6:23
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you feel about it today?
6:26
[SPEAKER_00]: I am a little more fearful it now than I was a couple years ago with last time we talked about it.
6:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Why?
6:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Because now I'm seeing, you know, you are seeing it more prevalent in
6:39
[SPEAKER_00]: like everything like labeling obviously the internet, it's all over there.
6:45
[SPEAKER_00]: So it is starting to, I'm starting to see it actually cut into like, you know, the art community's livelihood.
6:52
[SPEAKER_01]: So but okay, let's make a distinction then.
6:57
[SPEAKER_01]: The community's livelihood.
7:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Would you say that there are
7:05
[SPEAKER_01]: levels or stratus to artists.
7:09
[SPEAKER_01]: So at the top of like the artist is you look at a piece or you hear something on the radio or you know it's that artist.
7:17
[SPEAKER_01]: You know there's a signature to that artist.
7:20
[SPEAKER_01]: At the very bottom of this vibration is AI where it's just like just crap and just filled with just
7:29
[SPEAKER_01]: copies of copies of copies that are done like poorly or soulless, right?
7:34
[SPEAKER_01]: But then in between all of this exists, everybody else, right?
7:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And in order to make the highest money in music or in painting and you have to have like this.
7:48
[SPEAKER_01]: crazy signature that people recognize and like I just want that.
7:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, right?
7:54
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you're up there does AI affect this conversation that we're having?
7:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, I think if you like I guess in some respects to it's different for everybody, you know someone like
8:07
[SPEAKER_00]: at the top of the food chain, like I don't know, like a Taylor Swift or something.
8:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Or a bank key, or a bank key, yeah.
8:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I don't know how much they would have to worry about it.
8:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Cause like they're set for life.
8:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
8:19
[SPEAKER_00]: They've made their mark.
8:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone knows who they are.
8:22
[SPEAKER_00]: It still doesn't feel nice to, like I'm sure for them to have their music ripped off and like remixed and by some fucking computer, right?
8:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Like an algorithm.
8:32
[SPEAKER_00]: But financially speaking, I think they're fine.
8:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Principal, I think it's different.
8:37
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think it does affect them on more personal level, less of a business level.
8:43
[SPEAKER_00]: It's that makes sense.
8:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's too much, you know.
8:45
[SPEAKER_01]: But I tend to think if I was banksier Taylor Swift, they could copy it all day long, but they'll never be the essence of me.
8:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, no, absolutely not.
8:59
[SPEAKER_00]: But the thing is,
9:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Is that going to be the same for everybody?
9:03
[SPEAKER_00]: So like someone, you know, a joke will off the street doesn't give two shits.
9:07
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, this sounds like Taylor Swift, I like the music.
9:09
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to give my money so that like this, I don't know, like you give the listeners to this Spotify AI artist, which, you know, if you want to do that, that's fine, but it's not really, you're not supporting an artist, you know what I mean?
9:24
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's where it's,
9:25
[SPEAKER_00]: The principal comes in.
9:26
[SPEAKER_00]: That's an artist.
9:27
[SPEAKER_00]: That's how he has an artist.
9:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
9:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
9:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I haven't come across anyone who's, uh, you know, rips my stuff directly like blatantly.
9:38
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure it's happened, but if I were to see that, even if some alternate universe, I was financially set.
9:44
[SPEAKER_00]: My art has, you know, made me the money that I need to make.
9:48
[SPEAKER_00]: It would, yeah, it would.
9:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, because I want art to remain art expression as pretentious as that sounds, you know, because that's what it's meant to be.
9:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
9:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
9:59
[SPEAKER_00]: So when you have something just randomly scraping and randomly just coming up with these images, and I hate to admit some of them are nice, but there's no, like you said, they're soulless.
10:15
[SPEAKER_00]: right, so what's the point?
10:18
[SPEAKER_00]: It's, you go, take a pretty picture.
10:21
[SPEAKER_01]: It's an interesting intersection of where we're living right now because we don't know where the outcome is going to be in like five years' wheat.
10:30
[SPEAKER_01]: But you're feeling that it's getting scarier, but I'm getting the feeling
10:47
[SPEAKER_01]: If I was, I probably would probably go Apeship crazy right now, you know, and I can feel it in you.
10:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's not like, it's not cool.
10:56
[SPEAKER_01]: But on the, on the outside of, of analyzing this stuff and being critical about like the comparisons and everything, I'm like, the more of that crap that exists in the AI space,
11:14
[SPEAKER_00]: valuable my art is going to be yeah I feel no 100% but this is when you have to find the people willing to you know pay it so on the illustrating side right yeah so you're a commercial illustrator
11:31
[SPEAKER_00]: you some company can easily just completely undercut you.
11:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
11:35
[SPEAKER_00]: That's right.
11:35
[SPEAKER_00]: You're off.
11:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
11:35
[SPEAKER_00]: You're done.
11:36
[SPEAKER_00]: So you're done there.
11:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
11:37
[SPEAKER_01]: They can just corporate illustrator you're done.
11:40
[SPEAKER_00]: That job is, yeah, it's becoming harder and harder.
11:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Like you find that like the one diamond the rough company that, you know, that unicorn of a company that actually would support.
11:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
11:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Like good luck with that right now, you know.
11:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, as a company, I'm, yeah, they're done.
11:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, like they do, constantly undercutting just quicker, faster, cheaper, because they don't have to pay an artist.
12:03
[SPEAKER_00]: So that obviously is a big bother.
12:05
[SPEAKER_00]: On the artistic side, though, when you are in the fine art space, or just like, it doesn't even have to be fine art, but just like the art space, like the people last night, to see the people so appreciative of like a human making art,
12:22
[SPEAKER_00]: just was that's like that's the saving grace there with, you know, they don't want the slot.
12:30
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, they want the real deal, the appreciation.
12:33
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why I think as an artist who actually does the hand painting and it's still a manual process for you as an artist,
12:44
[SPEAKER_01]: your stock only rises at this point with all the sloppy that that's how I can imagine like the people that bought your three there's three different people that bought your paintings last night in 20 years from that they're like yo there was this brand-new hardest guy that lived at one point I hope I lived longer than 20 years though my bad say 200 years right
13:08
[SPEAKER_01]: The grandkids are looking at that, they're going to tell us like a human being that drew that.
13:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, can you believe a human being from Canada do that piece?
13:17
[SPEAKER_00]: So, where are you seeing that now, you know?
13:19
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the thing.
13:20
[SPEAKER_00]: So, my wife Jill, also an artist, you know, or so, when we do these convention shows and we sell our prints, she'll have an iPad there with like a video for process.
13:31
[SPEAKER_00]: And you see these like, you know, younger kids come up and like, what the fuck, like you?
13:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you paint it this?
13:38
[SPEAKER_00]: And she's like, well, yeah, like how do you think cards make?
13:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, she's not that rude.
13:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Honestly, but like, of course, it blows them away to see like it's not even digital art like she works traditionally.
13:49
[SPEAKER_00]: So to see someone painting with paintbrush and coming with these beautiful images, it blows their mind.
13:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Which blows my mind that their minds are blown like when you're in Italy and you see the David right.
14:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, or you see this to see in chapel and you're like.
14:04
[SPEAKER_01]: do so many ways up there and ask, yeah, oh, I need to do that.
14:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there's value to that.
14:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think the more slopter is the better it is for like, the Brian Wong's in the world, no?
14:15
[SPEAKER_00]: See, again, it depends on who you're talking to.
14:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, again, the people last night that, you know, that's kind of what you're talking about.
14:22
[SPEAKER_00]: But on the commercial side, sure.
14:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, because I'm, I'm working on a couple book covers and one of my clients just recently,
14:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Considering AI, but she wanted to get like a human hand and also like the copyright issue, right?
14:42
[SPEAKER_00]: But you can't copyright AI images.
14:44
[SPEAKER_00]: So if she use an AI image for her book cover, anyway, we just take it and use it on their own thing.
14:50
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's one of the reasons that she kind of came to me.
14:54
[SPEAKER_00]: But just the fact that she even considered it, it's the fear, right?
14:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Like,
15:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And it, I mean, in the end, I don't think it would do them any favors for that.
15:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, with copyright issues and just there is like a general backlash.
15:13
[SPEAKER_00]: You can say I right now.
15:14
[SPEAKER_00]: So I guess depending on who you talk to, but I looked at.
15:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it was when Britney Spears had come out.
15:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember doing that like whole pop era of Britney Spears and that bubble gum pop era.
15:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And I remember seeing my Jessica Simpson and all the first day at a junior high galera at the time and it all sounded the same to me.
15:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Because those coming out of like the classic rock era of like Led Zeppelin and all these, you know, hair bands that you know, that I grew up on.
15:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And I thought to myself like,
15:50
[SPEAKER_01]: The regurgitation of this algorithm, yeah.
15:55
[SPEAKER_01]: But human beings were doing it at the time.
15:57
[SPEAKER_01]: They were like, oh, you know, Britney Spears, this is selling in sync, selling back street boys is selling nothing.
16:04
[SPEAKER_01]: It sounds different.
16:06
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I sounded at the same to me.
16:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
16:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And I at the time considered that as basically, Slop.
16:13
[SPEAKER_01]: That was AI Slop to me.
16:16
[SPEAKER_00]: See, I,
16:17
[SPEAKER_00]: I know what you're saying.
16:18
[SPEAKER_00]: I wasn't a fan of that.
16:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Like because he's listen to one man.
16:21
[SPEAKER_00]: You listen to all of them, right?
16:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
16:23
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's when they all kind of melt together.
16:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, you know, a Katy Perry or a casual comment on the radio.
16:28
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't tell the difference between the two.
16:31
[SPEAKER_00]: But I still have an appreciation for
16:34
[SPEAKER_00]: the actual voice that they used, they still did their performed their own dance moves, they still, they might not have written the songs, but they expressed the songs in their own way with their own voice.
16:45
[SPEAKER_00]: So I do agree with you to a point, but I still,
16:50
[SPEAKER_00]: respect what they do, whether I'm a fan of it or not, you know what I mean?
16:53
[SPEAKER_01]: All I'm saying for me, person, this is just a personal observation and feeling when it comes to the new age of expression, whether it's a music or art of food or cooking because Robots all of these things, I think there's always going to be a place for humans to make their own product.
17:12
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope so.
17:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I really do, because man,
17:17
[SPEAKER_00]: the way things are going now, it just seems like the ones in power are just trying to cut people out to save money.
17:25
[SPEAKER_00]: So where's the revolution?
17:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but I don't know if what we think, and I'm not just arguing the other side because that's my job, right?
17:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Literally my job as a
17:44
[SPEAKER_01]: It's one of a kind artists who sells his pieces for tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars in the future.
17:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Mine hung would like to see that too, right?
17:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
17:53
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's talk about how would Brian Wong, the Brian Wong is in the world and the jios of the world, how do you get to that level?
18:00
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you, there's a way?
18:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, honestly, I'm going to be completely honest.
18:04
[SPEAKER_00]: I have no idea.
18:05
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just doing what I'm doing and you know, just you never thought about it strategically.
18:09
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, like...
18:11
[SPEAKER_00]: not thing outside of the box, just kind of keep doing what I'm doing from what my stuff opportunities come.
18:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
18:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Take them.
18:19
[SPEAKER_00]: You see someone that can like, well, we're talking off-camera earlier about connections, right?
18:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
18:26
[SPEAKER_00]: So a lot of the artists jobs that I have gotten come from connections, right?
18:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
18:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
18:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
18:31
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like,
18:33
[SPEAKER_00]: establish illustrator offered a job they can't do it they passed on to me it's like well I know this other guy Brian he can do it so the you know like the publisher who ever come to me and I'm like absolutely so back in May I told you like I really got into painting and then so I started to to chat GB Diego if you want to become
19:01
[SPEAKER_01]: a high-selling artist, a fine artist, great.
19:05
[SPEAKER_01]: What are the steps?
19:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And straight up, chat to VT game with the steps.
19:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you remember the steps though?
19:12
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember clearly, because it has now informed me how I look at everything.
19:17
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm so curious what was the, yes, what was the result of like, what did, uh, what did AI, AI, and I did that because I wanted to extrapolate what the journey was for anybody who wanted to be a one of a kind, high-selling artist, right, because if you could take that framework,
19:34
[SPEAKER_01]: So he's interesting what it said to me, because it knows me, right?
19:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And it goes back to this thing I've been talking about all year.
19:42
[SPEAKER_01]: All year, you listen to the podcast.
19:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been talking about this idea of childhood trauma, childhood thing that sets off in obsession, right?
19:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Something happens when you're a kid that solidifies this thing that you can't stop thinking about.
20:02
[SPEAKER_01]: This is what it's told you.
20:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
20:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Really.
20:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
20:06
[SPEAKER_01]: So the obsession is what leads to the expression.
20:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
20:13
[SPEAKER_01]: The expression is what leads to the life work of what you do.
20:16
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's at Ken.
20:19
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't look at the food you've made for all those years.
20:23
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a cook.
20:25
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't look at the podcast, the closest 600 podcast episode you've done as one thing.
20:32
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't look at this little painting hobby as one thing.
20:35
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't look at the memoir that I'm writing as one thing.
20:38
[SPEAKER_01]: You look at it all as a total expression, the way the way you're doing it.
20:45
[SPEAKER_01]: one of these big artists like Picasso, Picasso wasn't just a fine artist, he was a sculptor, he was, there's many mediums, right?
20:53
[SPEAKER_01]: But it goes back to the obsession that goes back to the trauma.
20:57
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you have a through line that goes from your trauma or whatever that childhood thing is to the obsession onto canvas, onto a sculptor, whatever, and you show your life's work.
21:11
[SPEAKER_01]: and you have a community of people who are like, oh my God, I fuck with this artist because he is expressing the very turmoil that I'm feeling, then people just buy it.
21:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And then, okay, so they broke that down, right?
21:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
21:26
[SPEAKER_01]: They're like, that is the trajectory of an artist.
21:27
[SPEAKER_01]: That is trajectory of any musician or any like chef or what the people can identify this universal theme that is being produced from this individual who has experiences pain or joy as a child, all the way up to him.
21:42
[SPEAKER_01]: So you look at Picasso, you look at all of these guys have whatever they're questioning throughout the different periods of their lives.
21:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, all right, well, how do I get started as a painter?
21:53
[SPEAKER_01]: They're like, okay, first you start with an eight by eight canvas and you just keep doing that over and over and over.
21:59
[SPEAKER_01]: You do a hundred of those and then you move into bigger ones and you do a hundred of those and you begin to show your friends and if your friends really want them or the people that you're showing it to really want them start putting a price tag on it.
22:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And then after a while, if the demand is growing and your art is getting better,
22:16
[SPEAKER_01]: then you go to a 40 by 40 and then if that works and you just get bigger and bigger and then the bigger your pieces, you get an exhibit, you get a gallery and if you have enough people fucking with your pieces they buy it and you're pretty much selling for $20,000 a piece at some point fine trajectory that had that change between you.
22:38
[SPEAKER_01]: It's very specific too.
22:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I don't necessarily think you have to go bigger and bigger on a literal sense.
22:49
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think what you do, yeah, definitely art is expression and trauma, everyone's experience, trauma into different degrees.
22:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Take that, I think that's a great start for sure.
23:01
[SPEAKER_00]: And people can tell when it's authentic, you know?
23:06
[SPEAKER_00]: So maybe this is a stretch, I was kind of thinking
23:13
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess my work, you kind of could say, I don't want to be melodramatic here because I didn't have a traumatic childhood, but maybe my kind of going full throttle until the Vietnamese culture now is making up for wanting to be white when I was a kid to fit in.
23:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Why are we here?
23:37
[SPEAKER_01]: The only reason that we are connecting all these years is that you would like to share that.
23:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, absolutely.
23:45
[SPEAKER_01]: So then all of the guests that come on have a piece of that and everybody who's tuning into this podcast has that thing that they're all universally kind of like into because that's an extra shared experience.
23:59
[SPEAKER_01]: They're an aired.
23:59
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you put something on Canvas and everybody's like,
24:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to buy that for 1500 bucks last night.
24:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to buy for three grand last night.
24:06
[SPEAKER_01]: That is what we're all like, that is what we as a community of Vietnamese people gravitation with.
24:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And all the films that you see at the festival and music that's being written in Vietnam or throughout the diaspora, it's all addressing this longing to be part of the whole thing.
24:26
[SPEAKER_01]: So your buyers will come from the affluent sector.
24:34
[SPEAKER_01]: of the Vietnamese diaspora.
24:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Really?
24:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
24:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I know it.
24:37
[SPEAKER_00]: I know it because... Because it's never been like an aim for me to like... Selt of it.
24:44
[SPEAKER_00]: No, not to be it.
24:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Just to like the biggest whale.
24:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I've never, you know, like...
24:48
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't need the biggest person, or the person with the biggest pockets.
24:55
[SPEAKER_00]: It's enough to live, I don't intend to, but kind of going back to what you're saying, but like the shared experience, I think I take more of that, I appreciate that more than, you know, like the big money that they spent last night.
25:10
[SPEAKER_00]: I know, I know a whole group of people, Vietnamese people, that don't know it yet.
25:18
[SPEAKER_01]: But I have a feeling of you had like a piece that was like, I don't know.
25:24
[SPEAKER_01]: eight feet by eight feet and they looked at it and they're just like, I have to have that in my house because none of my friends because they all have porches, Vietnamese doctors, lawyers and dentists and they've all made a lot of my last 20 years, right?
25:37
[SPEAKER_01]: All my age.
25:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
25:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Have no idea about art.
25:41
[SPEAKER_01]: They have no idea that those Vietnamese artists like you out here and they haven't been introduced to the art world yet.
25:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
25:48
[SPEAKER_01]: But how many porches can they
25:54
[SPEAKER_01]: to you run out of shiny shit to show off.
25:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And to you say, that's a brand-wong piece.
25:59
[SPEAKER_01]: That shit costs more than four of these portions.
26:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And like five years into it, that shit costs more than the house itself.
26:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's sitting in their house.
26:09
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the kind of some I see.
26:11
[SPEAKER_01]: But Brian, that's the kind of thinking that.
26:14
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to start to be thinking now because if you are selling three pieces last night, it's connecting at that kind of like at that community level.
26:24
[SPEAKER_01]: But you haven't expanded to the broader level who there's a lot of Vietnamese people with a lot of money who don't know about art yet because we are just coming out of survival mode, right?
26:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so the market is going to and you're still very, very young.
26:37
[SPEAKER_01]: the market and my them.
26:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you are.
26:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because you could still be painting up to 60s.
26:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I know artists were in their 80s.
26:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm true.
26:43
[SPEAKER_01]: True.
26:44
[SPEAKER_01]: True.
26:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Big works, right?
26:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
26:46
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, guys.
26:46
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, artists that Italian, Brazilian.
26:49
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you're thinking on this big level and I love sharing this stuff with you, says what I'm learning now is that if you began to like contemplate and meditate like on removing ourselves from the AI sloped.
27:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we're beyond that because we're humans
27:07
[SPEAKER_01]: can walk into somebody's atrium in a mansion.
27:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And we see a piece and we're like, oh, shit, that's Brian Wong's art.
27:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And they're Vietnamese.
27:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And they're like, the flex is no longer, I got three portions in the garage anymore.
27:20
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not about that.
27:22
[SPEAKER_01]: It's about there's a Brian Wong pass in the house.
27:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And I know Vietnamese people that are at that level already, but they're collecting like 18th century Vietnamese painters that came from France.
27:38
[SPEAKER_01]: There's collectors at that level, but where the modern collectors that are collecting brand-longs from, you know, and the Andy Horry trans from our, you guys are the modern artists that are going to be doing that.
27:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, thanks, man.
27:50
[SPEAKER_00]: I appreciate you saying that.
27:52
[SPEAKER_00]: I've never really, again, I've never really kind of like,
27:56
[SPEAKER_00]: aimed for the rich.
27:58
[SPEAKER_00]: It would be nice.
28:00
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just never, I'm just about to say, I've never even crossed my mind.
28:04
[SPEAKER_00]: I just kind of, you know, because like, I'm, that's not a world I'm used to.
28:08
[SPEAKER_00]: The skew set beyond it.
28:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Your set is way there.
28:12
[SPEAKER_01]: But now it's like, what do I, if I was like a gazillionaire, Vietnamese gazillionaire, and I have like these monthly parties?
28:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I'm literally describing you what really happens in the
28:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, that's a world I'm so unfamiliar with though, so I never think about it.
28:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Telling you like there are probably tens of thousands of rich Vietnamese Americans throughout the United States that have this sort of like
28:36
[SPEAKER_01]: ability to buy $8,000, Brian Longpiece that is going to escalate, but you got to keep painting them.
28:43
[SPEAKER_01]: You got to, and that's what Chetty BT taught me is like, this is a trajectory of all painters in the history of paintings.
28:50
[SPEAKER_01]: They just kept painting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.
28:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And the more you paint, it's, it's, it's, it's not what we think.
29:00
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not the more you paint, the more your paintings devalue, the more you paint, they work as little modules for marketing.
29:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my god, there's a brand one.
29:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my god, there's another brand one.
29:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my god, well how much was that brand one?
29:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I bought that brand one at 5,000, but it's now praised at 30,000.
29:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the brand one pieces that are out in the world, the 3,4,000 pieces are in the United States or in Europe.
29:25
[SPEAKER_01]: are appreciating as the more you you draw is the crazy thing.
29:29
[SPEAKER_01]: No, that if you introduce me to some of those people, I mean, it's, you know, you're after year when you and Andy are growing.
29:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think that's sort of like the thing you guys have to like,
29:40
[SPEAKER_01]: because I think about this.
29:41
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the same thing with the conversations that we are having.
29:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Like somebody can pull up a Brian Wong episode that we did four years ago.
29:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And like, oh, that's how he was thinking four or five years ago.
29:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And then 11 years from now, we're at you and I have another conversation.
29:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And you're like, you made a, you remember that one time you came from fifth and twenty twenty six.
29:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
29:58
[SPEAKER_01]: That one conversation that, you know,
30:00
[SPEAKER_01]: These are the things that why can't we have nice things too?
30:04
[SPEAKER_00]: 100%.
30:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I think we can, but it's like now we're kind of going back to what we're talking earlier, right?
30:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Like only now are we kind of embracing ourselves, right?
30:15
[SPEAKER_00]: So.
30:16
[SPEAKER_00]: you just got to like own it.
30:19
[SPEAKER_00]: No, we are.
30:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And then that's where it was.
30:21
[SPEAKER_00]: That was the part.
30:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
30:22
[SPEAKER_00]: But another thing that you kind of talk about, you know, price tag is, you know, the clean artists David Chang.
30:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
30:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
30:31
[SPEAKER_00]: So I saw him.
30:32
[SPEAKER_00]: I think was on Anthony, we're staying.
30:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Can't remember the show.
30:35
[SPEAKER_00]: But he did the show on it.
30:36
[SPEAKER_00]: David Chang.
30:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Sorry.
30:37
[SPEAKER_00]: David, Joe.
30:37
[SPEAKER_00]: David, Joe.
30:39
[SPEAKER_00]: So he said, uh, he started selling stuff for like, you know, like, a thousand here a thousand there known was my He was like fuck it like who cares like if I'm not selling it at a thousand.
30:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I'll price the 20th grand.
30:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, he just shot up to 20 grand.
30:52
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like I'm not making money selling it at a thousand so why not and why not and that's When valuable now it's rare.
31:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah
31:02
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's the value that you put on it, right?
31:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Please.
31:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Like you value your time.
31:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, you know, as an artist, you value the time you put in the effort.
31:09
[SPEAKER_00]: And then also all the years of learning to get to that point.
31:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Like every piece leads up to the most recent piece, right?
31:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Like the most recent piece wouldn't look the way it does without all the past pieces you did.
31:21
[SPEAKER_00]: That includes scribbles, sketches, all that shit.
31:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm saying, instead of us looking at AI in a very angry way, I'm saying as an artist who's highly skilled, look at it with gratitude.
31:32
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what I'm saying now.
31:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, change the way that you look at AI going.
31:36
[SPEAKER_01]: The more AI barks, slop there is, the better it is for you.
31:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't fully agree with that because this is not so much doing the polite what AI is done is it's such a joy out of like looking at a new piece of art on like, you know, when you're scrolling through your Instagram or whatever, or any screen really.
31:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Because now when I before I'd see a beautiful image, I'm like, fuck, that's amazing.
32:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, this painters, whether it's digital or traditional, I don't care.
32:07
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a beautiful piece of art they made it.
32:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Now my first thought is that did someone make this or did someone just type in a prompt?
32:14
[SPEAKER_00]: And that bothers me.
32:17
[SPEAKER_01]: If you can't tell the difference, then whoever prompted that did a great job, that's how I look at it.
32:23
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you can tell the difference and you're like, oh man, there's some soul behind it.
32:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And if I got tricked, I got tricked, but there's some beauty here.
32:30
[SPEAKER_01]: But my point is, at some point, the human touch is going to be certified.
32:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I hope it's much brand-hung, making a 20 foot by 20 foot painting or mural is going to be certified and nobody can take that away from you and the more AIS slapped it there is the more valuable your pieces are going to be and and you just need to be focused now on buyers.
32:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, this way you should paint at this stage, but let me ask you this so like.
33:02
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, the generation that is going to be like with the spending power 20 30 years from now, they grew up with AI art, so for them it's they're so used to it.
33:12
[SPEAKER_00]: They see it everywhere.
33:13
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I thank you.
33:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I do this.
33:14
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't think so.
33:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Just agree.
33:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that they're like, you can go to McDonald's or you can have a chef privately cook the best omelet that's fluffy.
33:27
[SPEAKER_01]: and silky and the texture just melts in your mouth with all of the flavors of the cheese that you put.
33:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Or do you want to make Donald's Eggman muffin?
33:38
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a market for all of it.
33:40
[SPEAKER_01]: True.
33:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't think that.
33:43
[SPEAKER_01]: human beings are ever going to lose the, my kids don't, I mean, they, they, they, they at seven and nine years old right now, they can be like, oh, that's AI, I'm out.
33:52
[SPEAKER_01]: They literally say that it's AI, I'm out and then they want something that they can touch and real things that, you know, we play baseball, we, we throw it together, catch that analog experience, they will take that analog experience with their dad overplaying video games.
34:08
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's your kids, though, because, like, look at how many other kids nowadays are, like, like, when we were kids, we were outside, you know?
34:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I mean, my parents were pretty over-protective, but, you know, you know what I mean?
34:20
[SPEAKER_00]: But, like, the number of kids that are outside nowadays, it's diminished because a lot of kids are just on their screens now, and it's becoming the norm.
34:29
[SPEAKER_00]: So, my fear is that, you know, 20, 30, 40, 50 years from now, AI, art is going to be the norm.
34:36
[SPEAKER_00]: artists who actually still do are in like actual paintings.
34:39
[SPEAKER_00]: That's gonna be like this rarity.
34:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I never go away.
34:44
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think it'll ever go away fully, but I think it's gonna, I think parts of it will be replaced because... Yeah, humans will always look at a... a da Vinci painting or a sustained chapel with...
34:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
35:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope so.
35:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Always gonna look at a Brian Wong painting in a hundred years from now,
35:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Fuck, I got a rope, I got to move up, I got the honor that it came out of it guys, brain.
35:09
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm very flattered, thank you.
35:10
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just saying, right?
35:12
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just saying.
35:12
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope so, I really do, because I would hate for like a future where art is just all generated randomly.
35:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a totally confident perspective about it.
35:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Because as I think about more AI, I slap in the robotics of food, you know?
35:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and there's a place for all of this.
35:38
[SPEAKER_01]: But there's also a sacred place for human touch, human expression.
35:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it was created.
35:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Ideally, I hope so too, you know?
35:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, who knows?
35:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Who, like, we could be like all in a virtual,
35:54
[SPEAKER_00]: world and you know 100 years and everything is AI then like now I'm going to like the sci-fi stuff but like it's just you know it could be anything then and I do I do fear it I think there's uses for for sure you know people who are pro AI bring up good points every now and then I don't agree with all of them but they do bring up
36:19
[SPEAKER_00]: It can be used as a tool.
36:22
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't like the argument that people say it's gatekeeping.
36:24
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think it's gatekeeping.
36:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Gatekeeping would be like, you know, you never pick up a pencil.
36:30
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want you to become an artist.
36:31
[SPEAKER_01]: You guys get keeping?
36:32
[SPEAKER_00]: No, no.
36:33
[SPEAKER_00]: People who are pro-AI saying how anti-AI people are gatekeeping.
36:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, it's our gatekeeping.
36:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that makes no sense.
36:41
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just like, I encourage people that, like, when you told me earlier that you tried painting, dude, I was so happy.
36:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, yeah, you know, like, I go for human, yeah, I kind of want to do a painting session with you now.
36:57
[SPEAKER_00]: I wish we should talk about that actually.
36:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Wait, yeah, tell me what that wouldn't talk about.
37:01
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just like this fucking collaborate on something.
37:03
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, yet like a canvas, some paints and just go nuts, which is like paint whatever.
37:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't be fun, man.
37:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Right?
37:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Wouldn't that be fun?
37:12
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I'm scared about what?
37:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Come on.
37:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not, you know, my hands, my muscles, you know, I don't know what I'm doing.
37:18
[SPEAKER_00]: This is like, there's no stakes in this.
37:20
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no, it's just for fun.
37:22
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's how it starts.
37:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, you know, so, anyways, my original point was, I love it when people pick up the brush for the first time.
37:29
[SPEAKER_00]: I love it.
37:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, you're not going to be like an amazing artist.
37:32
[SPEAKER_00]: The first time you draw something, if you've never drawn something regularly before.
37:38
[SPEAKER_00]: If you want to get to a certain level, you have to earn it.
37:42
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't just, like, if I was to, you can't just call yourself an artist.
37:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, if I'm telling someone to make a pizza, I want this topping, this topping, I'm telling them how to make the pizza, and they make it, I'm not a pizza chef, right?
37:56
[SPEAKER_01]: So, and that is why I don't think that what you do will ever go away.
38:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think every day it increases,
38:06
[SPEAKER_01]: people with a lot of money and high taste know how long it takes for an artist to ripen.
38:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And when they look at something, they just know that it took years to get to that point, right?
38:20
[SPEAKER_01]: They just know and they want to buy that.
38:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's
38:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I fully have faith in humankind that that will never go away.
38:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's the cynicism in me.
38:31
[SPEAKER_00]: It is.
38:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I can be cynical and it's something I'm working on, but as a sales guy,
38:39
[SPEAKER_01]: I have no problem selling human touch.
38:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I have no problem selling AI.
38:44
[SPEAKER_01]: I have no problem selling robotics because everything has a category.
38:48
[SPEAKER_01]: The nuances of their categories is what's gonna bring the buyer and attract that particular buyer.
38:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Mm-hmm.
38:57
[SPEAKER_01]: So many in the Bank Sea category.
38:59
[SPEAKER_01]: So many listening to Billie Holiday or Miles Davis or Adele or Lady Gaga,
39:07
[SPEAKER_01]: is not the same person perhaps who are listening to Britney Spears.
39:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
39:13
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't see the same buyer ship.
39:16
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, like, there's to see, I'm sure there's like some overlap in the Venn diagram somewhere.
39:20
[SPEAKER_01]: But the most part, like, there are nuances and levels to... Yeah.
39:26
[SPEAKER_01]: purchasing habits and profiles and avatars of people who buy high art, yeah, who eat at like high-end restaurants, who go in and experience artists on a human level, and they won't mess with the AI stop, and that's not your clients.
39:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, like the AI, yeah, no, absolutely like, I mean, I'm going to give you an example.
39:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, hit me.
39:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Avable cousin.
39:48
[SPEAKER_01]: love her dearly.
39:49
[SPEAKER_01]: She's my age.
39:50
[SPEAKER_01]: We're not gonna name me in.
39:52
[SPEAKER_01]: 20 years ago I was visiting her like back east and we were driving in a car and then we pulled over to one of these places in Atlanta where they sell CDs, you know like full-todd we have CDs and you know you could buy
40:09
[SPEAKER_01]: DVDs and CDs based on artists or like these Vietnamese shops you can buy like a big bin and you can buy Let's say you can buy five DVDs and it's all mixed up for 20 bucks
40:25
[SPEAKER_01]: You pick any five 20 bucks or you can buy that one DVD on on on like it's it's it's an artist like Titan or Latour it's an artist can lead that you buy for 20 bucks one CD right or you can buy like this compilation like mix bag of whatever yeah for for 20 bucks or five
40:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, looking at this wall and she looks at the bin.
40:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, should I get you getting anything?
40:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I got, oh, yeah, I'm part of getting to pick this.
40:52
[SPEAKER_01]: She said, but why would you buy that one for $20?
40:55
[SPEAKER_01]: When you can buy five for $20, and that's when it dawned on me.
40:59
[SPEAKER_01]: That's when it dawned on me.
41:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like,
41:01
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a damn buyer for everything you do.
41:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
41:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And I couldn't put my cousin down for her.
41:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, hey, she's getting like 200 songs, whatever, for 20 bucks.
41:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm getting only one album here, 13 songs and an album by my favorite here.
41:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm very intentional about who I'm going to put in my ears, right?
41:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
41:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Her is like, I drive so much and I want to just hear a medley and a variety of, right?
41:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And it dawned on me, I was like, so she's not listening to music the same way.
41:30
[SPEAKER_01]: The way I am, just the same way as, I know people who never eat at high in restaurants and I know people who only eat at the highest restaurants and that's like their hobby.
41:42
[SPEAKER_01]: They only spend money for like the best of the best.
41:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And I know our people who buy art that way too.
41:49
[SPEAKER_00]: You're starting to win this conversation.
41:51
[SPEAKER_00]: That is a good point.
41:51
[SPEAKER_00]: No, absolutely.
41:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I know what you mean like when you go in, I guess it's not a one-to-one comparison, but it's like a quality over quantity argument, right?
42:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
42:01
[SPEAKER_00]: So I can't argue with that for sure.
42:03
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been so many times where you go to the bargain bin and just the fact that the art in there could be fantastic, like the music could be like fucking stellar, right?
42:14
[SPEAKER_00]: But there's a stigma now that it's a dollar CD.
42:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Totally.
42:18
[SPEAKER_00]: then you look over here and it's this like there's so many times where when I used to like go in a record source and stuff it looks for that one seed I can't find anywhere and it's like I finally found it it's like $40 and there's only like seven songs on it and I like fuck man do I get this or and of course I get it because it's
42:37
[SPEAKER_00]: it's what I wanted.
42:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I'd rather spend the $40 on that than, well, like, what you're using your cousin kind of, why is doing $1000 and dribbled jelly ticket?
42:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
42:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, because there's an audience for it.
42:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And at the Hollywood bowl, you know, that is, it's like I'm venue in Hollywood.
42:59
[SPEAKER_01]: The parking prices when you drive by, I don't know, okay, so Highland is the road that drives up to the bull.
43:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's parking lots, all of private lots on either side.
43:08
[SPEAKER_01]: So when I used to drive up Highland and before I get to the bull and the marquee tells you the artist, when you drive up the bull, you'll see $25 parking, $25, $30, $30 parking, $25, $25, $20, $30 on both sides, $25, $30.
43:22
[SPEAKER_01]: When you drive up and you see $75, $25, $80, $80 parking, you know it's an Android boat chili concert.
43:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I can help each other part, that exists, that's true.
43:34
[SPEAKER_01]: the market, the supply and demand, they're like, whoever is dictating the price of the parking knows that this is a high-end clientele at the ball playing.
43:46
[SPEAKER_00]: So if it's like, you know, it the price fluctuates.
43:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Of the parking.
43:51
[SPEAKER_00]: That's crazy to me.
43:52
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm still trying to get over the parking price.
43:54
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, no, I totally get what you're saying.
43:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And there is a clientele that's willing to pay.
43:59
[SPEAKER_00]: They have the means to it.
44:00
[SPEAKER_00]: And you, you know,
44:02
[SPEAKER_00]: You want to pay for the convenience.
44:03
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd rather if you can afford it, pay $80 to be right there, than $30 and have to like walk three blocks, right?
44:11
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's not even just that.
44:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm saying that
44:14
[SPEAKER_01]: the people that are going to the Enderable Chili Concert, the parking lots are not charging 25-30.
44:20
[SPEAKER_01]: They're charging 50 to 80.
44:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm saying that the price of the parking lots even increase, because they know that that clientele can pay for, yeah.
44:29
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a rich clientele, and they're gonna charge more for the parking.
44:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
44:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Because they know that the tickets to a but Chili Concert,
44:37
[SPEAKER_01]: two grand 1500 bucks versus like a regular like dooby brothers I don't know, I'm just big enough names.
44:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Those bands might be, you know, in the realm of like two three hundred dollars for chicken, you know, but the other, yeah, it's just, it's a pricing game and I think all is all a pricing game.
44:55
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you do bring up a good point with that, too, because like, look at,
44:59
[SPEAKER_00]: what Taylor Swift's era, I keep going on.
45:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, Taylor Swift, I don't know why.
45:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, era, era story.
45:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, like, some fucking people spent like $20,000.
45:07
[SPEAKER_00]: But yes, yeah, that's another one.
45:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
45:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, like, dude, like, come on.
45:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, this is, that's crazy to me.
45:15
[SPEAKER_00]: That's ludicrous.
45:15
[SPEAKER_00]: But like you said, there's, if they can afford it, there's a clientele for it, right?
45:21
[SPEAKER_01]: So, and whatever the artist is doing, there's some quality driven metrics that they're doing to it.
45:27
[SPEAKER_01]: to really amp up the production quality.
45:30
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you are getting more for what you pay where it's no... Yeah, it's not just like coming out with a guitar.
45:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, no.
45:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you got the Pirate Technics.
45:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you got the lighting ray and the new dancing is like real.
45:40
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like adds levels to this.
45:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no, for sure, for sure.
45:44
[SPEAKER_00]: But then, you know, like this is a little off topic, but then, you know, you're getting into, like, the reselling market, right?
45:51
[SPEAKER_00]: But again, like, there's a client for that, too.
45:54
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's an audience for it.
45:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is all related to like a bowl of fall for 40 bucks.
45:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
46:00
[SPEAKER_01]: $50 for $125 a bowl of fall.
46:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
46:02
[SPEAKER_01]: It's all related.
46:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Because the higher we put ourselves as creators and creatives, the
46:10
[SPEAKER_01]: of the branding of the Vietnamese culture goes up and I'm interested in that, you know.
46:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I think this is like this period in time, I think, is a really good period for the culture right now because this is when, you know, I don't want to say the Trump's gone, but now our parents are willing to talk about it more and we're at an age now where we're curious about it.
46:34
[SPEAKER_00]: So we want to express it right.
46:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Like now, I think I've seen more Vietnamese
46:39
[SPEAKER_00]: you ubiquitously in, you know, mainstream culture that I ever have grown up.
46:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
46:45
[SPEAKER_01]: It's gaining, like, it's gaining.
46:48
[SPEAKER_01]: You see, like, big Coachella concerts.
46:50
[SPEAKER_01]: You see, like, big, you know, campaigns.
46:53
[SPEAKER_01]: You see Vietnamese designers on the fact that.
46:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, big time.
46:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, like, even, like, you know, and I mean, food culture is always easy to kind of share, but it still doesn't diminish the meaning of it.
47:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, the most recent Spider-Man movie had a shout
47:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Miss pronounced it, but still, you know, Bung me, Bung me, Bung me, but it, you know, baby sex.
47:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Look, man, next time I have you back on the podcast, I hope that you move the needle in pricing your art upwards of like in the thousands.
47:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I want to see that.
47:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I regretted a different line that this is specifically for high-end buyers and
47:34
[SPEAKER_01]: There is an intention to raise the value of the pieces you do because last night, prove that you can sell them.
47:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
47:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Honestly, I only got to speak to Theresa last night, but to the other buyers, I just want to say thank you very much.
47:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Extremely flatter, never expected that, so it meant a lot, it really did.
47:55
[SPEAKER_00]: This year is a few thousand, but in a few more years it can be tens of thousands.
47:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Hopefully, yeah.
48:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I know it could happen.
48:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
48:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
48:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, thanks, man.
48:04
[SPEAKER_00]: You have more confidence in me than I do.
48:05
[SPEAKER_00]: So.
48:07
[SPEAKER_00]: But also, I want to make a request for the next time we paint together on the podcast.
48:14
[SPEAKER_00]: That would be so much fun.
48:15
[SPEAKER_00]: We would talk while we take that would be fun and drink Hey, dude.
48:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
48:21
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to like that's fun.
48:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you that'll be great 100% That'll be a lot of fun, dude.
48:25
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's let's let's yeah Yeah, all right I'll have to see you now.
48:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my pleasure man.
48:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much.
48:31
[SPEAKER_00]: You come and appreciate it all the time.
48:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you
48:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for listening to the Vietnamese with Kenneth Wynne.
48:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Special thanks to Brittany Tran, to Jane Wynne, Catherine Wynne, Tina Fam, Sydney Jamie, and Crystal Tran.
48:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Please find us on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok at the Vietnamese podcast.